Talk:Pessimism

Stray Comments

simism is like superstition. Zapffe is not superstitious. --Sigg3.net

Actually, he deals with himself in Om det tragiske (en. On the tragic) and naturally points out why the biosophy isn't pessimistic, it just is. -- Sigg3.net 09:14, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

User Sigg3.net, there is no similarity or common characteristic between pessimism and superstition. Pessimism is the conviction that the actual world is the worst possible world. Superstition is ignorance of the correct cause of an effect and the subsequent attribution of an incorrect cause for that effect.Lestrade 19:45, 21 June 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

Discussion from VfD

Dictionary definition -- Graham  :) | Talk 18:51, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

• Keep. It's also a philosophical doctrine (that this is the worst of all possible worlds). I'll add some more material shortly. -- ChrisO 18:56, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  • We already have philosophical pessimism Smerdis of Tlön 19:15, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
• I went ahead and merged this with the philosophical article, and made this stub a redirect. Smerdis of Tlön 19:47, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
• It was made into a redirect, this should be an acceptable solution. (Nice new format, what do we have to do to add new entries?) - Texture 19:48, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  • You have to go to MediaWiki:VfD-ARTICLE_TITLE_HERE. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 19:50, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
• Keep, now that it's a redirect. (And may I say, I love the use of MediaWiki for this! Great idea, whoever thought of it.) -- Friedo 20:11, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
• Keep as a redirect. It's a good topic. Wile E. Heresiarch 01:23, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)
• Keep redirect -- Cyrius 05:09, Mar 26, 2004 (UTC)
• Keep, and I think it would be better not to have it as a redirect, but rather an article proper. Sam Spade 07:38, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  • It might be better to move philosophical pessimism to pessimism and have the redirect point the other way, since even philosophers who speak of pessimism seldom qualify it as the philosophical kind.  :-) Smerdis of Tlön 15:47, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. No reason to delete now. Though yeah, maybe redirect the other way (philosophical pessimism -> Pessimism)-Seth Mahoney 04:53, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  • I have moved the page and created the new redirect. The content now at pessimism is what was formerly at philosophical pessimism, and what once was at the "pessimism" under discussion has been merged with it. Smerdis of Tlön 03:17, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)
• Keep "new" article -- Cyrius | Talk 11:46, Mar 31, 2004 (UTC)

---

I removed "(partially inspired by Schopenhauer)" after Zapffe's biosophy. He was also partially inspired by Job, Hegel, Shakespear, Wittgenstein, Næss etc. etc. etc. - Sigg3.net 15:37, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

Half Empty/Half full

I don't know wether it has any relevence here, but I stumbled across this the otherday James' disproof of pessimism

To a bean-counter it's twice as big as necessary.

I'm pessimist and I think that not all the pessimists will say that the glass is half empty and i don't think that all optimists will say that the glass is half full.I think that the glass is half empty and half full.

• Of course it is both. The question merely serves to point out that people may view the same situation in different ways and that their general outlook on life affects this. --Tysto 17:54, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

• • And by being both (which is correct) it isn't a paradox, as the statements are complementary not conflicting

Philosophers

Wow. Arthur Schopenhauer in the same breath as Stephen King. Schopenhauer would be proud. Maybe I'm being optimistic. --Tysto 09:37, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

lol, imho, it's either Schopenhauer or Stephen King. As they say, one must go. Tootles

Dan Asad 03:01, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, and that'll be Stephen King. He shouldn't even be mentioned in this article.

"Famous Pessimists: Voltaire (most notably Candide)"

Voltaire was not a Pessimist, but a meliorist, as was (after rather painfully acquiring wisdom) his character Candide. The recommendation of meliorism is in fact the entire lesson of Candide. -- 201.51.166.124 05:35, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Bad World, Worst World

The introduction to the article asserts that pessimism is the "belief that things are bad." This is incorrect. The Latin word pessimus means "worst." Therefore, pessimism means that this world is the worst possible. A view that "things are bad" would more correctly be called "malism," because malus is the Latin word for "bad."Lestrade 21:45, 27 July 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

--(Not logged in) but I wanted to note that I read somewhere in a related discussion regarding free will where philosophical pessimism was described not as belief that things were the worst they could be, but that things were the only way they could be, without assigning any attributes of goodness or badness. I'm not sure if that was an accurate description, however.

As stated above, the Latin word pessimus means "worst." This is a fact and can be verified by anyone in any Latin dictionary. Your description removes any valuational meaning for the word "pessimism." What if I said, "I read somewhere that the word optimism means "things are the only way they could be, regardless of whether they are the best or the worst"? This way of thinking and speaking removes all meaning from the words. Any word can be replaced by any other word. Ethics then disappears, because there is no more good or bad, best or worst. Lestrade 12:25, 18 September 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

You're both wrong in your reasoning, even if Lestrade is right in his conclusion. The definition need not corresond with its etymology but its context. However, in this case (philosophical pessimism) it corresponds to both. Pessimism in modern philosophy owes its heritage to Schopenhauer, not Latin. Guinness4life (talk) 16:05, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Optimism Bias

It seems like some frequent editors here have formulated articles as an ad hominem attack of sorts. It lists proponents of pessimism, coincidentally the most objectionable characters, and optimists in the best possible light, with proponents such as Martin Luther King Jr. I can assure you there were some Nazis during WW2 that were optimistic about the rise of their fascist empire, and some that were pessimistic. This article attempts to depict pessimists as dark, hopeless people that will never accomplish anything good. There are pessimists who are good people, and optimists who are bad people. That's all I can really say at the moment so I'll stop repeating this ad nauseam.

Pessimism as a term in psychology as opposed to philosophy

This article is about the term "pessimism" as it is used in philosophy, but I wonder whether we could do with a page on the term as it is used in psychology? This may be important, because, in the statement on hopelessness theory by Abramson, Metalsky and Alloy (1989), the authors appear to disinguish between clinical depression and circumscribed pessimisim. You can read more about hopelessness in the article on locus of control, in the section on attributional style. ACEOREVIVED 20:19, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Philosophical Pessimism

Philosophical Pessimism has a long history that has recently been forgotten within academic circles. This article is poor in that it links both the psychological and philosophical outlooks. I think these should be separated into two different articles. I feel that the philosophical tradition has been slighted by this article. Furthermore, the variations within philosophical pessimism are not very well explored, in my opinion, in this article. I believe that Joshua Foa Dienstag's work on philosophical pessimism would be a good starting position for the philosophical article. 128.239.116.237 (talk) 20:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

A list would be nice. The biggies are Schopenhauer, Spengler, Cioran, Evola (though he normally gets lumped in with the Orientalists). Only one is mentioned - Schopenhauer, mainly because he's the only one anyone reads. I've studied the Pessimists extensively. Want me to put one up? Oh, and then there's the Russians. Everyone forgets them. Guinness4life (talk) 16:50, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Freud has more than a touch of pessimism of the philosophical variety, so I think it's hard to sort out the two (psych and philo) until after William James' "Varieties of Religious Experience" defines the pragmatic value of religion. Most of the German shrinks (back when they were still philo oriented) were pessimists including the now long-forgotten Hartmann, et al. Even if you don't buy that - it makes sense that Pessimism bled in - Schopenhauer did have one of the best conceptions of the mind and perception until the twentieth century (and he was German, just like all the early psych folks), so naturally all the psychologists read him. Well that is, before Behaviorism created the psychologist-as-scientist rather than psychologist/psychiatrist-as-doctor, at least. Guinness4life (talk) 16:50, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmm... have to be careful

See this edit, which was fixed by another IP more than a month later. I haven't read through the entire page, could there be more vandalism? Merzul (talk) 10:37, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Removed paragraph on Eisenhower

The reference to Eisenhower was inaccurate and I have removed it. Eisenhower did not claim that the free market would harm American rights and liberties. He stated that the Cold War situation of a large standing army combined with the industrial system needed to supply it could do so, but that this could also be prevented by vigilance on the part of the government and citizenry. There was nothing inevitable about it in his opinion. This is not a pessimistic statement. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.181.235.17 (talk) 16:46, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Politics section

Completely US based, as such pretty irrelevant outside of the US. elpincha (talk) 15:57, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Cultral Pessimism

Can someone try returning the section cultrul pessimism? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.109.215.217 (talk) 18:17, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's necessary. The section looked pretty awful. raseaC^{talk to me} 21:10, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Incomprehensible text

"it is ultimately helpless to prevent us from serving it"

wat --213.130.252.119 (talk) 21:09, 2 April 2010 (UTC)